Once again, the toothless committee of unexceptional Norwegians has bestowed the worlds highest honor not for achievement, but for expectation. Hey EU! Kissinger and Obama are waiting to congratulate you backstage.

In case you thought the crumbling, ineffective, and overly-bureaucratic European Union was on life-support, the Eurozone in danger of splintering, and the single currency on the verge of collapse, a group of unexceptional Norwegians would like you to remember that the 27 member states of the EU are, in fact, the global bulwark against war and misery.

But when the Nobel Committee announced in Oslo on Friday that it would award its 2012 Peace Prize to the EU, the room full of journalists reacted appropriatelywith a chorus of Joe Biden-like guffaws and incredulous yaps.

It was an award for the entire continent, a thanks-for-not-indulging-genocidal-instincts-so-common-before-the-EU trophy. This was something like Time magazines decision to name You, its readers, as Person of the Year in 2006, though here theres a million dollars of prize money attached (which works out to about .0027 euro per citizen).

Of course, there was no shortage of European politicians and bureaucrats ready to praise the committees sagacity. Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl said the choice was wise and far-sighted, underscoring the frequent presumption that the Norwegian committee offers prizes not based on previous accomplishments but expected future ones. In this case, the expected accomplishment is merely the rescue of Greece, Spain, Italythat is, the entire European project.

The Norwegian committeerepresenting a non-EU member stateoften does its part to influence political outcomes. In 1973, Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were waging a brutal and bloody war in Vietnamone that had not yet ended when the prize was awardedbut the committee wanted to reward progress, if not exactly peace. Two warriors recast as champions of nonviolence, with the hope that they would at least take the hint. And what of awarding the prize to Yasser Arafat, who not only waged war on behalf of a liberationist movement, but was also rather fond of deliberate attacks on noncombatants (i.e., terrorism), like the 1972 murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics?

In other words, this prize was never strictly about peace, but rather the political result the committee expected and encouraged.

There is no better illustration of this instinct than the awarding of the 2009 prize to President Barack Obama, who, while not even a year into his first term, nonetheless impressed the Norwegians by not being President George W. Bush, despite extending large chunks of his foreign policy. Of course, wars continue, drones fall, Guantanamo is still in business, embassies are attacked, and American troops continue to fight a futile war in Afghanistan. So even by the measure of hopefulness, the Norwegians have been colossally wrong.

This history didnt squelch the hosannas, such as that from European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, to whom the 2012 award demonstrated that the EU is something precious, and the award justified recognition for a unique project that works for the benefit of its citizens and also for the benefit of the world.

Others eschewed Barrosos squishiness while still casting the honor as backwards-looking, a celebration of achievement and not expectation. The European Union, which was established in 1993, and its precursor organizations "helped to transform a once-torn Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement. According to Thorbjørn Jagland, the committees chairman, today war between Germany and France is unthinkable because of the EU.

This is sophistry of the first order. There are a number of overlapping and interwoven reasons for the relative calm of modern Europe, and none of them are related to the moral authority or peace-making capabilities of the European Union or the endless diktats emanating from Brussels. If one wants to honor those who brought peace to Europe, lets be heterodox and suggest the American and British militaries and NATO deserve a rather large share of the credit for establishing and keeping the peace. In fairness, the United States wasnt entirely forgotten by Mr. Jagland, who, when asked about the economic crisis ravaging many EU countries, responded, It started in the United States, and we had to deal with it. So there you have it. The peace of Europe, partially secured and underwritten by America, was the doing of the EU, but Washington and Wall Street did bequeath to Europe the gift of financial collapse.

In 1973, Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were waging a brutal and bloody war in Vietnamone that had not yet ended when the prize was awarded

Not true. The Paris peace accords were signed by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in January 1973, with an immediate cease-fire and ending open military action(at least for the time being). The prize was awarded in October 1973.

Obama’s prize was absurd especially as we learned how the process works. The nominations for 2009 were due on Feb. 1, 2009, when Obama had been president for exactly 11 days. Clearly, his nomination was not based on anything he had done as president. What a joke.

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